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Topic: Your Story, Mike Oldfield and You< Next Oldest | Next Newest >
Tayniee Offline




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Posted: April 29 2008, 04:37

I like to listen to peoples stories. I though it might be a good idea to put our stories together and say all there is to say about Mike Oldfield and how his music has affected us.

These are just a few of the questions I would like to know at least;

..when did you first discover his music, which piece did you hear first, which pieces mean the most and why, how do you feel when you play his music, how has his music influenced your life, and how would you like to see his music develop in the future ?

Perhap say a little or all at once........


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Tayniee Offline




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Posted: April 29 2008, 05:03

I suppose I ought to start....

I was 11 and in a friend's house when I first heard the first few bars of Tubular Bells. It was one of those moments where you remember where you were. I was sat on a settee and mesmerised. I sat still and wanted to just listen,and my friend seemed a bit non plussed, but she sat patiently watching me listening to it until I'd finished. You can't  make out what your feeling at that age as such, but in retrospect I was excited, a bit scared, moved. I asked her to ask her dad to put it on again....and he did....nice dad he was

Thats all for now.....      ;)


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The Caveman Offline




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Posted: April 29 2008, 05:10

I guess ii probably heard TB in the womb!First became aware of it at about 3 though.Fell in love with it.Then we moved to North Staffs and they had a record library.My Dad used to hire out the LPs and tape them so by then i had heard Hergest Ridge,Ommadawn,QE2 and exposed and it just snowballed untill now.
 In terms of what means most it has to be TB,Ommadawn and Amarok.I find these albums to be very very powerful peices.In terms of now i'm really hoping to hear more in the vain of MOTS but i'd love to hear him play an electric guitar in anger again.


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Tayniee Offline




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Posted: April 29 2008, 06:04

Quote (The Caveman @ April 29 2008, 05:10)
love to hear him play an electric guitar in anger again.

...yes I would, I liked the angry guitar in Ommadawn. Ommadawn was the most important piece of music to me in my teens and I played it a lot. Friends used to associate it with me. They thought it was ok but they didn't have it in their music collection. I felt a bit freaky really but Ommadawn seemed to talk to me, and I knew it was good.

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The Caveman Offline




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Posted: April 29 2008, 07:28

Ommadawn is probably 'the one' for me too.It was started in the month i was born and it's always a nice experience to put it on and just drift with it and allow it to take me on a journey.But then i still love the orginal TB.Still sounds fresh even after hearing it for 30+years.The first LP i actually bought with my own pocket money was Five Miles Out.Bought in Argos in Exeter at the age of 7!

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Tayniee Offline




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Posted: April 29 2008, 13:02

....I used to spend hours looking at  Mikes 'music score' on the inner double cover of Five Miles Out, and see if I could follow it with the music, but I couldn't :/

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Bassman Offline




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Posted: April 29 2008, 13:05

Okay, I'll take a shot.

Back in 1973 the North American single version of TB was getting played on the radio up here like crazy.  It was, and still is, a brilliant edit.  I was 12 years old, so there was no way I was ever going to get in to see "The Exorcist".  But in short order I was reading the book.  Between the book and the song I was able to imagine all that I wasn't able to see.  It was dangerous, forbidden, captivating-almost like a form of seduction (and if you think that's going too far, remember how much the song's melody and structure resembles sex).  I bought the single (amongst the first I ever had) as soon as I saved enough allowance-and even after I had it I would phone all the radio stations constantly to request it.  The single version of Kraftwerk's "Autobahn" came out soon after and the two were frequently played back-to-back.  It was a magical time-radio stations still played requests then!

Not long afterward I was able to get the LP (on CBS, strangely enough).  The music was so far removed from what a pre-teen would normally listen to that it was single-handedly responsible for shaping my music preferences permanently.  Sure, I would listen (and still do) to a lot of crap, but I would always have that solid foundation of musical education to help me put everything that was to come into perspective.  Two years later he gave us "Ommadawn" and even though Canadian radio-play had already abandoned him (apart from one occasion that I've already described on another thread), I was already changed.  "Tubular Bells" and others that followed were borne out of a fierce, independent muse.  I don't think it's a stretch to say that MO touches that fierce independence in all of us here.  In many ways his music has kept me wonderful company on my road.  It's not the most important thing in life, but life would mean so much less without it.

NOT edited for length, and proud not to.

:)
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Sir Mustapha Offline




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Posted: April 29 2008, 15:30

I've narrated it once - my foray into Mike Oldfield territory was due to me clicking on the Mike Oldfield page of George Starostin's music reviews page (which has sadly fallen into inactivity), out of pure chance and randomness. I read the review for Tubular Bells and at once thought it could be something quite good. That was when it started. I was already listening to a moderate array of different bands, but Tubular Bells opened a completely new horizon of possibilities to me.

Thanks to George Starostin I've jumped into a lot of exciting, interesting music. Mike Oldfield, Autechre, Can, Talking Heads - it was all mostly thanks to him.


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Check out http://ferniecanto.com.br for all my music, including my latest albums: Don't Stay in the City, Making Amends and Builders of Worlds.
Also check my Bandcamp page: http://ferniecanto.bandcamp.com
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Tayniee Offline




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Posted: May 01 2008, 05:16

Quote (Bassman @ April 29 2008, 13:05)
  MO touches that fierce independence in all of us here.

....Definately

I however, was a bit of a slow starter, and whilst Tubular Bells felt dangerous and seductive it also felt forbidden,  so I didn't dare request it for my record collection at that age. Might have been a different kettle of fish if my parents had been listening to it. You were a bold 12 year old Bassman. Whilst my mates were into into Donny Osmand, Bay City Rollers, David Cassidy, I was into 10cc, and had a big crush on Eric Stewart. I did quite like Cassidy's, How Can I be Sure....          :/

Fast Forward 6years, I was in love with my first boyfriend, and he had Hergest Ridge in his collection, so I was impressed.  HR represented everything romantic joyful, exciting, scary and weird about love.  When I left home to study I bought the full set of TB, Ommadawn, Hergesr Ridge, Incantations.  So finally getting that independent streak and with 4 music companions, followed by QE2 and Platinum. It was Instrumentals that  I loved best, I didn't get into the MO songs as such, but liked the quirky comical 'lyrics' in his instrumentals,TB's side 2, 'shrug uf wah doc won the wahwah
, shrug uf wah toblerone (chocolate ?).....slooww,et u et............Shloow, Shloow..........'


Enough for now.
 
   ;)


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Tayniee Offline




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Posted: May 01 2008, 08:04

$ir Mustapha, I'd like to know how you felt when you first heard Tubular Bells ? Did it influence you becoming a muscician?

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bevy Offline




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Posted: May 01 2008, 14:05

I was invented in 1071 using the power of empty crisp packets and two Tom Jone's songs.

then there was me

I know it's mad, it just happend.

TBH, I first heard TB when i was about 14 and i have been in love with Mike's music ever since

look at this Tom Jones dance..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDE0s4wy2bc&feature=related
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Sir Mustapha Offline




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Posted: May 01 2008, 17:28

I must say I don't have the clearest memories of how it was to listen to Tubular Bells for the first time, but what I do remember is that I "fell into" it very, very quickly, and I was quite obsessed with it for weeks afterwards. Tubular Bells is something that reveals itself layer by layer upon repeated listenings, and I know that, at that time, I definitely had never listened to anything even remotely similar to it; and I don't think I have yet.

At that time, I already wrote music on the computer and everything, but I was still very stuck to the Prog rock clichés and formulas, as if them were the be-all-end-all of musical innovation. Tubular Bells was one of the things that burst open my perception of what music could be. Very few musicians did that to me.


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Check out http://ferniecanto.com.br for all my music, including my latest albums: Don't Stay in the City, Making Amends and Builders of Worlds.
Also check my Bandcamp page: http://ferniecanto.bandcamp.com
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Posted: May 02 2008, 04:32

I was born to Tubular Bells..
Learnt about MO when I first heard Tubular Bells II..
I had my sexual debut to Tubular Bells III..
And - I guess - I die to Tubular Bells XVII  (17)..

- yeah...MO is planning a hole new series of TB    :D


No...just kidding...none of the above is true  :p
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raven4x4x Offline




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Posted: May 02 2008, 08:43

I've probably told this story before, but that would have been several years ago, so here we go...

My Dad had several of Mike's albums when I was a kid, so as I was growing up I remember listening to them, especially Tubular Bells and Five Miles Out. We also had Crises and maybe Hergest Ridge. I certainly enjoyed them, but I wasn't really into music so much at that stage.

This changed when we found the Tubular Bells II / III DVD. I remember loving it straight away, and it quickly became my favourite music of all. This would have been about when I started high school I think (about the year 2000). Luckily for me, my entire family also loved it, so we began to collect all of Mike's CDs. For a long time the DVD remained my favourite, but eventually other albums replaced it, both by Mike and other artists. Right now it wouldn't even make my top 20 albums, but it still holds a special place as the one that really got me into Mike's music. In a musical sense, it's probably the most important DVD I ever heard.


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Tati The Sentinel Offline




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Posted: May 02 2008, 09:04

When I was about 10 years old when I saw William Tell Overture's video on TV on a prog rock special.Then in 92,one Brazilian TV channel brought TB II for Christimas,I saw it but I didn't like at all! Hated Sentinel(which is now one of my fav Mike's tunes).

Of course during the years I've haven't seen nothing about him here on the media,I've heard stories about Virgin Records,TB being the first album released on it,that he was 20 when TB came out...

Then I remember in 1998/1999 watching on a cable TV channel a english TV show called The Album Show(for those who subscribe Dark Star,there's a note on one of them tallking about it and I saw Mike Oldfield again on TV in ages,and I joked,"well,he's still there!".And watching this I got hooked on Sentinel(the single restructrure)...but it was only in 2001,when a friend of mine who is a Rick Wakeman fan recorded some albums for me(TSODE and TB III) and some videos(Elements,TB II and TB II) and...I got interested.Discovered this wonderful website,I've started to buy his CDs,read a lot of interviews,lots and lots of stuff...and now I consider myself as an admirer of his work,I've learned a lot about life with his interviews when he talks about his life,of course that I also got interested on his music and well,noticed other his other talents ;)

Of course my big MO moment happened when I had the chance to see him performing live @ NNOTP 2006,went on 3 concerts and all of them were amazing...my favorite one was the very first one in Cologne,I was in the front row...Mike was in a wonderful mood on that night...I can't describe it in words,I coudn't sleep well that night...that year was a tough one for me,and watching Mike live has helped me to heal myself inside!

Changeling has become one of my fav books ever,it's so uplifting for me,and while I'm reading it I have a strong identification with some similar stories that happened to Mike in terms of feelings and reactions to them.Mike has showed off that people who is different like him can be successful being the way they really are,and it does mean a lot to me,who have felt I was a outcast in this world for a long time.

I'm sure that I've needed to get a little bit older to enjoy his work,music and the fascinating person he is.


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"But it's always the outsider, the black sheep, that becomes the blockbuster." - Mike Oldfield, 2014

"I remember feeling that I'd been judged unfairly and that I was going to prove them wrong." - Peter Davison, 2011
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Ugo Offline




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Posted: May 02 2008, 18:37

Like Sir M., I think I've already told this elsewhere, but anyway... ;)

I've been familiar with (and liked, and learned to play) Moonlight Shadow ever since its release. That was the very first M.O. thing I heard. I was 13 in 1983, and at that time it seemed utterly unconceivable, to me, that a pop song should be 'signed' by the musician who wrote and played it, rather than by the vocalist who sang it [even if the label on the original 45-rpm, which I have, clearly reads: Vocals by Maggie Reilly... :)]. But, with time, I learned that such a crediting is not only possible, but also perfectly normal with people like M.O. ... Moby docet. :D

However, the piece that really got me into M.O. is Tubular Bells II. I saw the Edimburgh show on TV and I was spellbound by it. Literally hypnotized. I bought the CD, loved it. Then I bought the original (i.e. TB 1973), loved it as well, and the rest, as they say, is history. :D

As for the other questions:

- TB II and Amarok are my absolute favs because of their extremely varied moods. Amarok is my favourite instrumental album ever.
- M.O.'s music influenced my life in that I'd never have dreamed of touching a guitar before hearing Moonlight Shadow - I was a pianist, I thought that guitar strings would hurt my hands. After I heard that song, I started wanting to learn to play the guitar. I actually started playing it only five years ago, I can't say I've learned to really play it. :p
- I actually wouldn't like his music to develop in any direction, in the future. If he keeps repeating himself on any of the genres he's done (and he's done lots of genres...), to me that's perfectly fine.


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Ugo C. - a devoted Amarokian
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Scatterplot Offline




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Posted: May 03 2008, 02:54

"Your story, Mike Oldfield and you". Pretty funny. The first time I heard him was 1973. I was 12. FM was a brand new thing for me, having moved to the Houston, Texas area from  South Carolina, which was only AM. FM was a wonderland. I suddenly had 100's of new records to go buy from people who are now legends, but were new to me. One day me and my brother were listening to the Houston FM rock station and the DJ said something about a "new guy who was only 19 years old and some of this is in the Exorcist movie".  It was a 7-8 minute edit of TB1. We just kind of sat there in dumbfounded amazement as we listened. When the master of ceremonies kicked in, we were now jaw-dropped gaping at the speakers. When the girly vocals and acoustic guitar ended, we said simultaneously, "We gotta go buy that!!" Well, this occured and I came across something very strange. When I was 7-8 years old(1968), I had this dream where I heard this very bass/deep/dark piece of music. I was only a kid but I was self activated enough, to think to myself when I woke up, "That was a wierd dream. What was that music?".  I never forgot the dream, remembered it note-for-note, and 5-6 years later, 1973,  it turned out to be the part on TB1, part 1 at exactly 7:00 minutes. Note-for-note. A strange experience.....but every new album thereafter got better, but, after many years there were some slump years/weak albums but MO always bounced back.  I still play his albums more than all other bands/artists that I ever called "important"....35 years later. Well, that's my Tubularian moment moment for today.
Jim


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We raise our voices in the night
Crying to heaven
And will our voices be heard
Or will they break Like the wind
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Dirk Star Offline




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Posted: May 03 2008, 08:10

[quote=Scatterplot,May 03 2008, 02:54][/quote]
Quote
Well, this occured and I came across something very strange. When I was 7-8 years old(1968), I had this dream where I heard this very bass/deep/dark piece of music. I was only a kid but I was self activated enough, to think to myself when I woke up, "That was a wierd dream. What was that music?".  I never forgot the dream, remembered it note-for-note, and 5-6 years later, 1973,  it turned out to be the part on TB1, part 1 at exactly 7:00 minutes. Note-for-note. A strange experience.....


Wow! That`s fantastic stuff.So your first Mike Oldfield experience was way back in 1968,five years before he`d even put anything out.I wonder if Mike had already wrote that section of music back then?He could have been "tapping into his muse" that very night you dreamt it in fact?I guess we`ll never know,but it`s kinda` fun to think about it that`s for sure.There`s a couple of friends of mine who`ve had similar kind of "premonition" dreams like yourself.But I`ve never heard of one regarding a piece of music before.Well,from what I can remember anyway.Absolutely love reading stuff like that,thanks for sharing it.  :)
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trcanberra Offline




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Posted: May 05 2008, 23:18

Hey there

First heard Mike on an old 8-track TB my brother had - thought it was OK.

Bought a few LPs from a record club in the late 70's / early 80's.  I think Platinum was my first and loved that, then went back via Boxed and Incantations and bought everything up through Discovery.

Then - got married - stopped listening - can't recall why exactly.  Sold all my LPs which left Discovery, Complete and OTB as my only Mike - sporadic listening in the following decades.

Then, not too long ago, was watching 'An American in Paris' - which includes "I Got Rhythm" - which set me to thinking that I had been meaning to replace my LPs with CDs for 30 or so years now  ;)

Well, the rest is history.  I have the lot now, plus many rarities etc.  I listen to a new CD each Friday (9 to go), and love every minute of it all.  The kids are now fans and even my wife is coming around.
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Korkesova Offline




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Posted: May 06 2008, 05:32

The first time I heard him was 1980. In this time wasn't available his music in socialist states. I gave TB of my boyfriend. I gradually  bought all  his albums. I have full collection of his albums. His music is part my live. I listen to him every day. I can to say, that I am dependend on his music. I love him and his music. It is the best music for me.
It is beaty coke for me.
Thank you Mike for beauty in my live.


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